It takes a lot to stand out among the thousands of volunteers in the downtown area, but one group found a way.

At the urging of head coach David Velkas, nearly 50 members of the Stuyvesant H.S. football program – many wearing their jerseys – showed up at Chelsea Piers yesterday to lend a hand.

“It’s been hard for us, but a lot harder for other people,” said David Olesh, a senior who lives in Queens. “We felt like we should be here.”

The World Trade Center attack has had an enormous impact on people throughout New York City, but since Stuyvesant is located just two blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood, these players have taken it especially hard.

Still, they feel a special obligation to do something. Although the team was turned away at the Piers because they didn’t need any more volunteers, they managed to find ways to help. The players carried supplies 15 blocks from there to the Salvation Army on 14th Street.

Ten players signed up to go on a boat tonight and will help serve food to rescue workers from Ground Zero. The shift lasts for 12 hours.

“I’m excited to do it, so that I can feel like I’m doing something,” said Olesh. “It’s just good to be back together as a team.”

The players hadn’t seen each other as a group since Tuesday’s tragedy. They can’t get back to their school. Stuyvesant, one of the three elite city public schools, won’t open again until at least November. On Thursday, all 3,200 students will start going to Brooklyn Tech in split sessions.

“It just recently hit me that we might not play [football] again,” said Nick Oxenhorn, one of several seniors who hopes to play at an Ivy League or Div. III school next year. “It’s shocking. Football is a really important part of our lives that’s been taken away. Going to a different school, we can adjust to. But not having football will be hard.”

Yesterday, however, the players focused on helping as they walked around lower Manhattan.

“I’m really proud of my team,” Velkas said. “I know it was hard for them to come back here after Tuesday, but they want to help. They are the best kids in the city.”